The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Promotions, discounts, and other forms of marketing documents that implement a marketing procedure to give a benefit to a consumer in exchange for purchasing a particular product or service or other benefit in a quid pro quo arrangement may be linked to a payment device such as a credit card. In current payment device systems, the process to link a marketing document to a payment device requires the Primary Account Number (“PAN”) for the payment device. Further, third parties (i.e., marketing document publishers and not either of the PAN owner or a financial institution that issued the PAN to the owner) who offer the marketing documents to the PAN owner are responsible for collection of the PAN and complete the linking process. Sharing and collecting PANs by third parties presents a security and privacy risk for both the PAN owner and the issuing financial institution. Increasingly, there is a need for a method to link a PAN to a marketing document without exposing the PAN owner and issuing financial institution to this risk.